Industrial Design | Research | Discursive Design
This project is my bachelor’s thesis on investigating self-directed learning behaviours of university students in the Philippines during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and the design of a tactile time visualization tool to help address issues of burnout.
Learners in a Self-Directed Learning (SDL) environment take charge of their own learning to achieve academic success but are prone to procrastination, stress, perfectionism, and eventually burnout when left unmanaged. Possessing good time management is the foundation of learners in developing successful learning habits.
This projects aims to design a time visualization tool that would help manage one’s time to be more intentional with how learners spend their time and identify their individual learning habits and view their work-life balance through a comparison of colored work spaces and available personal white spaces in their day.
Being able to visualize scheduling and learning habits of Self-Directed Learners helps them keep a healthy-work life balance by being intentional with the time they spend. This helps reduce academic burdens such as stress and procrastination which could potentially lead to burnout and a myriad of other medical problems.
The study used a mixed-method research design that utilized a quantitative survey that aimed to assess the SDL behaviors and skills of undergraduate students of UP Diliman. This is succeeded by a qualitative one-on-one interview with volunteer participants to give their insights regarding their specific planning and learning behaviors. Analysis of both the quantitative and qualitative data were then conducted after to identify potential areas for design intervention to aid Self-Directed Learners.
A quantitative online survey questionnaire was sent to undergraduate students of the College of Science and College of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines Diliman to assess their SDL behaviors and skills. The questionnaire investigated the learning behaviors of students, especially amidst remote learning in the pandemic. Respondents were asked to identify products they used to keep their learning organized, what their most challenging area of their learning was, their work time preference, and how they felt about their SDL environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Adopting Henry Khiat’s validated 26-item learning-diagnostic tool, I included a 20-item questionnaire into the online survey where I asked respondents to rate their own understanding of their own learning needs as a first line of self-diagnosis to SDL through a 7-point Likert scale with the following factors:
Ten volunteer participants taken from the survey respondents at random were asked to participate in one-on-one qualitative interviews where they gave insights regarding their specific planning behaviors, learning habits and routines, as well as their motivational drivers to better understand their SDL behaviors and create design considerations for the product solution.
This was conducted through the use of Zoom, an online video-conferencing platform, for those who opted to conduct the interview synchronously and emailed written interview questions for those who opted to participate asynchronously due to lack of schedule availability. The interview insights of the ten participants were then transcribed and analyzed to identify gaps and pain points to be compared to the survey
A majority of respondents said that they actually became less productive in the pandemic when they were conducting SDL through managing their own learning schedules and strategies rather than relying on an instructor’s in-detail guidance for their respective classes during in-person learning.
After experimenting with several techniques, tools, and strategies, learners settled with what was most comfortable and efficient for them to use, whether it be digital or analog, after having tried both.
A majority of respondents noted that they felt they could not implement the same learning behaviors they are currently conducting in remote learning to in-person course delivery and that they would need to adjust accordingly to find what works best for them.
Respondents were motivated primarily by deadlines and not learning itself, meeting academic requirement deadlines for the sake of deadlines. This leads learners to feel unmotivated to conduct learning activities and makes them prone to procrastinating on tasks and overwork themselves when due dates are near.
Whitespace represents the available white spaces in one’s life–the available time we have where we feel in control. As a person gives part of their time in a day to conduct learning activities, they slowly take away a white space to focus their attention to the said activity.
This is evidenced by the appearance of color. It serves as a visualization tool that helps self-directed learners to consciously be more intentional with how they spend their time and identify their learning habits and view their work-life balance through a comparison of colored work spaces and available personal white spaces in their day.
A ‘time cap’ that limits consecutive work hours is created when too many tiles are stacked on top of one another on the next available white space. This is represented by the tiles falling due to the immense weight applied to the stack. This parallels how a learner loses control of their lives as the immense weight of overexertion is not mitigated with ample time for rest.
A prototype was assembled through 3D printing. Due to the limitations of the printer’s bed size, the parts were printed piece by piece and attached using super glue to create the larger components.
Color was added to the top of the clock case through the use of sticker paper. This represented the colored spaces that indicate work time blocked.
Tile variations were iterated which aimed to repeatedly test ergonomic factors such as finger spacing and positioning to provide appropriate space for the fingers to grip the tiles on the product. This involved having a pinch grip which situates the thumb and index finger, pinch semi which is similar to the pinch grip variation but focuses more on tactile adhesion of the fingers, a chamfered variation to easily pull off the tile from the surface it is situated on, and a flat base.
User testing was conducted over Zoom due to the limitations of remote learning in the pandemic.
Six (6) participants were recruited for the test using the following criteria:
The test consisted of measuring the following metrics:
Effectiveness
User task completion rates
User Satisfaction
Task-level satisfaction rating
System Usability Scale (SUS)
As this is a physical product being tested virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown restrictions, participants were given task scenarios and were instructed to vocalize their thoughts, reactions, and actions to complete the tasks in order to instruct me to perform the vocalized actions on their behalf, strictly only following what the participant says and not guiding their decisions.
Labels from A to L were placed on the wall aligned with the tiles of the product. Users were instructed to answer which tiles to pick up based on the given task scenarios by indicating its location through identifying whether it is located in the inner or outer circle and indicating the letter assigned to its segment. Example: Inner C.
The five tasks were divided into the following:
After each task, a satisfaction rating using a 5-point Likert scale was conducted to assess the participants’ ease in completing the given task.
Tasks 1 &2 both garnered a hundred percent completion rate, signifying that users found the product to be very intuitive having accurately identified certain times of the day and conduct basic tasks like blocking out multiple consecutive hours and stacking them on top of one another on the next available white space. After conducting the tasks, participants noted on a 7-point Likert scale that measured task-level satisfaction that boths Task #1 and Task #2 were ‘Very Easy’.
Task #3 garnered a 66.67% completion rate while Task #4 and Task #5 both garnered an 83.33% completion rate. This points to users initially having difficulty applying the product system but then soon adapted in the succeeding tasks. On a task-level, participants noted that the three tasks combined was ‘Slightly Easy’.
The System Usability Scale was then conducted at the end of all tasks. This was to assess the overall satisfaction and usability of the product system. Participants found the system to be of a “Good” rating.
In conclusion to the study, it can be stated that a Self-Directed Learning environment poses immense demands and challenges to learners that negatively affect their perception of control of their lives. Efficient time management through time blocking helps give back control in the lives of learners. Furthermore, a physical representation of an abstract concept such as one’s time spent in a day helps learners have a more visual and tactile intentional control of their lives, giving them the perception of being in control in spite of their learning demands. Time visualization allows learners to properly identify their learning habits and patterns and, above all, prioritize their well-being first and foremost.
Due to the limitations of the pandemic which resulted in conducting usability testing remotely through vocal instructions only through an online video-conferencing platform, it is recommended to conduct further testing and validation with users who would handle the product physically. It is also recommended that they not only use the product once to check general features, but to use it for a period of time to observe habits and routines that may arise while using the tool.
This final project for my bachelor’s was a very prominent turning point in the type of work I would like to do. I enjoy exploring user behaviour which the various stages of user feedback and insights gathering has helped me hone my skills, as well as being creative in my methods of investigation such as translating the System Usability Scale, which is often a tool used for digital services, into one for an analog product and even reworking the usability testing itself to work in a remote environment during the Covid-19 pandemic despite it being a physical product.
Working on this project during the pandemic was challenging as it was difficult to reach out to people for interviews and testing, but it also provided great real-life insights as to the topic I was investigating. Being able to even just talk with participants during interviews as well was a much needed break from the stressful academic demands brought by the situation where we not only chatted about doing the research, but also simply having communication with someone going through the same situation as them in a time where there was very little social interaction and contact with anyone.